"...Mankind has grown so base, / I mean to break with the whole human race." So wrote the 17th century comedic playwright Molière, in his famous work The Misanthrope. Of course, we know for sure that there's a place for reasoned dismay in this world, and we know it because our commenters engage in such reasoned dismay all the time. Follow the jump, and you'll see what we mean.

Wojdyla's post today on the Aérotrain was the ideal spur to commenter al_beaton, who laid it all out for us in eloquent fashion:

When I was growing up there was Concorde and hovercraft and rocket-powered monorail trains, jet packs, and journeys to the moon.

Now, the new Boeing "Dreamliner" looks just like the last one, which looks just like the one before, which looks just like the one before that, which looks just like a bloody Airbus, which is just a damned TriStar with an engine missing. (Rather than a DC-10 with an engine missing, which is a DC-10 with an engine missing)

Even the Space Shuttle is apparently ready for the scrap heap, and we're going back to launching stuff into space on the back of a firework.

Instead I'm supposed to be grateful because I have a telephone small enough to fit in my pocket, impressed by somebody glueing an ear on the back of a mouse, and delighted because you can get a GM strawberry that's been crossed with a fish so it stays fresh an extra two days.